Use Scratch to teach programming to students with neurodiversity because the visual nature of this language can make CS concepts more accessible.
Have students use simple functions in Scratch to create games and stories to share with their classmates in order to learn Scratch’s functionality.
Assign students to draw a dodecagon in Scratch before introducing repeat blocks so that once you introduce the repeat block, it is clear that it is a time-saving block.
Transition from one language to another closely related language to help students develop understanding of key abstract ideas programming languages concepts.
Use sounds in Scratch to make it clear when particular lines of code are being executed because it can be really hard for students to figure out the order of execution.
Misconception: Students incorrectly believe that variables passed into a block in Snap! will get modified; however, a copy of the passed-in variable is what the block receives and modifies.
Misconception: Students transitioning from Scratch to AppInventor are often surprised to not have a wait block.
Show past student projects during professional developments for courses that use Scratch to convince adults that kids of all ages can wrestle with hard, interesting problems and be excited by programming in Scratch.
Model parabolic motion in Scratch to show students (and teachers) that Scratch can handle engaging, complex problems because it is a real programming languages.
Keep the Scratch scripting area organized using the clean up button to ensure that there aren’t dangling scripts and to make debugging and understanding scripts easier.